Droid 3: Bigger Screen, Gingerbread and GSM

Published Jul 1, 2011 at 9:35 AM

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News was leaked about the Motorola Droid 3 showing that the smartphone will have a bigger screen, feature Android's new operating system Gingerbread and be global-capable.

The smartphone, which is sold by Verizon, will have a 4-inch display, have a Gingerbread OS, a dual-core, TI OMAPP 4430 1 GHz processor and both a front- and rear-facing camera, according to AndroidCentral. The Droid 3 will also be GSM, with global capability, unlike the original CDMA Droid 2. (Motorola later released the Droid 2 Global which was GSM.) The handheld will also sport two cameras, including a rear-facing 8 MP camera with 1080p HD video capture. The Droid 3 will continue to have a slide-out keyboard, but with an added fifth row, as well as a virtual keyboard. As for possible negatives -- it has16GB of internal memory but no microSD card, and it's not 4G.

The new second camera is obviously so Droid users can finally use video calling, which has been too long in coming. The non-U.S. version, called the Milestone 3, also shows some beautiful images taken by the smartphone's camera. We're excited by that prospect, since the biggest problem with the Droid 2 was its 5 MP camera which took ghastly photos -- where every indoor image looked like it was taken in a darkened basement apartment and all subjects had a sickly green-yellow cast. (Full Disclosure: Barbara E. Hernandez has a Droid 2 smartphone.)

The new Droid 3 looks promising, but probably mostly to those users who want an Android smartphone with a real keyboard. Those craving more memory and 4G will likely look elsewhere.